


Masquerade

by chronicAngel



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bonding, F/M, Healing, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-18 13:39:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18700717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: For a moment, it's like he's floating through space. He blinks a few times and then he's hardly even aware of himself, like he's walking through the hallways of a long building that's never gonna end. He imagines this is what Wayne manor might look like, only then he remembers that he's been to Wayne manor and-- it feels like only a few moments have passed, but by the time he blinks his eyes open again, there's blood all over him. Gilda is whimpering in the back seat, clutching at her gut, and the guy who was attacking her is collapsed back into the driver's seat with a letter opener deep in his chest and dark bruises on his throat. "Oh, God..." He mumbles, but he can't feel half of his face and it's too much, it's all too damn much. "Oh, God, did I do this?"





	1. Overture

They sit in the center orchestra, right at the front where, when he squints, Harvey can see the feet of the actors and actresses on the stage. If he looks up, which he often does, he can see the details of the actors' make-up. Christine has just ripped off the Phantom's mask, and the rest of the audience around them collectively gasps in horror. Gilda, next to him, throws a hand over her mouth. The make-up artist has really done a spectacular job of making him look like a monster, and Harvey stares at the pink skin stretching across his face like there was not enough there and it needed to be pulled as far as it could to fit over the full half of his face. Harvey can't even hear the dialogue or the music anymore, can only stare at the way the make-up makes him look like some sort of burn victim until the mask is back on his face.

"Are you okay, Harvey? You seem like something is bothering you," Bruce says as they leave the building a couple of hours later. He rests a hand on Dick's shoulder to still him from trying to cross the street and he immediately stops, blinking up like he's been lost in his own head, too. Gilda smiles softly at him. They've been trying for children for the last few months and she's really latched onto the thirteen-year-old in that time (even though Bruce adopted him almost three years ago now). Harvey pulls his arm away from Gilda where she's hooked her arm through it to run a hand through his hair.

"I guess I'm just a little stressed about the election tomorrow. No big." He glances up in time to see the crosswalk light turn green and hooks his arm with Gilda's again. "It was great seeing you and the kid, Bruce." He reaches out with his free arm to ruffle Dick's hair and they grin at each other.

"We should have dinner this weekend," Bruce calls after him as he starts to walk away while they wait behind for the crosswalk light in the other direction. "To celebrate your re-election as District Attorney." Harvey can only laugh a little bit and give a thumbs up over his shoulder. Bruce is much more confident that he's going to be re-elected than he is. Yelling louder, Bruce adds, "I'll have Alfred make a reservation at that little Italian place! The one in Midtown!"

He finally laughs, shouting back over his shoulder. "There are dozens of Italian places in Midtown, Bruce!" He and Gilda turn to walk down another sidewalk, scanning the streets for a cab they can hail. He doesn't even have time to raise his arm before the first one driving down the mostly empty street pulls to a stop in front of them. Gotham is a dangerous city. He knows he shouldn't get in. But he looks over at his wife and sees her shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, desperate to get out of her heels, and lets out a resigned sigh before opening the door to the backseat for her.

He climbs into the passenger seat and smiles at the driver, though he can hardly see his face. It's too dark at night in Gotham, and it almost seems like the guy's choice of hat was intentional in order to paint shadows over his features. "Thanks, man. Can you drop us off at the corner of 22nd Street and Walnut?"

The street corner is almost four blocks from their house, but Gilda doesn't say anything. She grew up in Gotham and knows as well as he does the dangers of giving a taxi driver your address. Sure, not every person who drives a cab is a serial killer, probably, but there's always the risk that they might be and he's not the sort of idiot who will take that risk. Not when he's running for District Attorney of Gotham County.

The drive is silent. The driver doesn't even play music, and Harvey feels too awkward turning on the radio in another person's car to reach over and flip it on himself. Gilda seems to feel the tension in the air, as she just stares down at her hands folded neatly in her lap and stays quiet, and so when they're at their chosen destination Harvey reaches into his pocket to grab his card and offer it to the guy. "Sign the receipt, please," the guy says, voice low and cold.

"Oh, sorry, it seems like I forgot to grab a pen before we left the house. Do you have one?" The guy nods wordlessly and reaches into his pocket as though to grab a pen, but when he pulls his hand out of his pocket he has a lidded glass of some liquid he can't recognize. He reaches for the door handle immediately but before he can pull on it the guy has taken the lid off and throws the liquid at his face. Immediately it feels as though thousands of burning needles have been stabbed into his skin all at once. He's  _burning_ , oh God, he's burning, and he brings his hands up to claw at his skin as though he can get it off of his face and he can  _feel_ it eating away at his skin.

He hears Gilda screaming behind him in the back seat and he tears his eyes open to look behind him. He can't see through one eye, the eye that the liquid-- acid of some sort, he's pretty sure-- splashed into, but he can see, blurry through his tears, the guy apparently trying to stab at his wife with  _something_.

He doesn't think when he reaches out, trying to disarm the guy, but he has basically no depth perception and so he just grabs his elbow and drags it back. The guy easily shoves him off. He's still too weak from pain, too out of it.

There's more screaming and more pain and it's all spinning in his head and he can't  _focus_ damn it,  _just give him a moment of quiet and let him focus_ _._ For a moment, it's like he's floating through space. He blinks a few times and then he's hardly even aware of himself, like he's walking through the hallways of a long building that's never gonna end. He imagines this is what Wayne manor might look like, only then he remembers that he's been to Wayne manor and-- it feels like only a few moments have passed, but by the time he blinks his eyes open again, there's blood all over him. Gilda is whimpering in the back seat, clutching at her gut, and the guy who was attacking her is collapsed back into the driver's seat with a letter opener deep in his chest and dark bruises on his throat. "Oh, God..." He mumbles, but he can't feel half of his face and it's too much, it's all too damn much. "Oh, God, did I do this?"


	2. Possession

He doesn't know when he passes out, but the next time he opens his eyes, he's in a hospital room. He can still only see in one eye, but he feels like there's bandages wrapped around his whole head except for the one crack over his good eye and he strains to remember what happened.

_Walking down the sidewalk. Gilda's arm hooked with his. A cab stops. They get in. He's too smart to give him his address. Not smart enough. They stop at the corner of 22nd and Walnut. Gives the guy his card. Needs to sign the receipt. He doesn't have a pen, so the guy reaches to get him one. He pulls out a cup of something instead. Throws it at his face. Screaming. And then blood, so much blood. Oh God, the blood_...

His stomach churns and he looks around the room, trying not to panic. He scans for anything familiar until he sees Dick asleep in one of the hospital chairs. His breathing picks up. He can't help it. Before he can stop it, he's hyperventilating and he can barely  _breathe_ through these bandages, he can't breathe, he can't, can't, can't, can't, need air-- "Harvey! You're awake." He tears his gaze over to Bruce who stands in the doorway with a can of Coke. His yell startles Dick awake, and soon the teen is on his feet.

Dick takes the Coke and then Bruce sits on the edge of his bed and pulls him into a tight hug and he lets out a muffled little 'oof' because Bruce's bear hugs are always a little too tight, especially so soon after the beginning of a panic attack that he's still not positive he's completely fought off. "You're in the hospital. Batman and Robin found you and Gilda covered in blood in a taxi. The driver was dead..."

There is an implicit question at the end, and it is invasive and anger flares inside of Harvey-- an anger he is very familiar with; an anger he has been shoving down all his life. He shoves it down now, instead staring down in horror at his hands. The blood has been washed away from them, but there are light burns on his palms and his eye widens.  _I was scratching at my face. I must have gotten some of the acid on them._ "Dr. Thompkins said your hands should heal up fine," Bruce says. Harvey looks up from his hands to stare the other man in the eyes, and then looks over to Dick.

"Hey Uncle Harvey..." Dick says slowly, standing several feet away. He sounds scared, almost. He certainly  _looks_ more timid than Harvey has ever seen him.  _You scared the kid. He knows what you did. He knows what you did and he's scared of you. You ruined everything, you idiot--_  His train of thought is cut off by Dick rushing forward, throwing his arms around him.

Slowly, Harvey lifts his arms to wrap them back around Dick, burying his face in the kid's shoulder.  _He was just worried. God, he must have been so worried..._ He knows if the situation was reversed, he would be.  _I'd kill the guy responsible_ , the angry part of him thinks.

"I'm glad you're okay," Dick says, sniffing, and Harvey pulls away to look at his face. He's crying.  _You made him cry, idiot_ , he thinks, and he wants to hit himself. He can't really do that, though. "B and I were real worried that you were gonna... That you weren't gonna make it. So I'm just glad that you're still alive." This elaboration only makes him angrier with himself.  _I just shouldn't have gotten in that cab. I should have known better. This is Gotham. It might've been safer to walk home that damn late at night._  He thinks of Thomas and Martha Wayne, his eyes sliding to Bruce, and he winces. _Or to ask Bruce if Alfred could've given us a ride. God, I should have done anything other than that._

A doctor knocks on the door, an older lady who looks like she might have been pretty when she was younger. "Harvey?"

"We should go," Bruce says immediately, gesturing at Dick. The boy looks between him and Harvey with furrowed brows and then gives Harvey a last quick hug before he shuffles out the door after his adoptive father. He watches after them, and he'd furrow his brows if he could but any time he moves the muscles on the burned side of his face he feels like the skin is tearing apart. He can only hope it'll heal and he won't feel like that anymore. After a minute, the doctor-- Dr. Thompkins, presumably-- stands at the foot of his bed, staring sadly at him.

"Hello, Harvey. My name is Leslie Thompkins. You can call me--" She stops for a moment, and then glances off to the side. She looks a familiar mix of angry and guilty. "Well, no, I suppose you can't call me anything just yet. The skin on the left side of your face has been..." She swallows and stares firmly back at him again, lacing her fingers together to fold her hands. It's a similar nervous habit to Gilda. "Melted off. It would seem the driver of the cab you got in threw concentrated sulfuric acid at your skin. If Batman and Robin hadn't found you when they did, you might have died."

She's quiet for a long time, like she is waiting for him to answer, only they both know he can't really speak properly with these bandages over his face (and he doubts he could move his mouth too much with his face all burned up like this anyway).

She swallows and then pushes on. "The timeline for your treatment is--" She cuts herself off, furrowing her brows and shaking her head a little bit to herself, and he can't help but notice her every microexpression. He doesn't think he's ever looked this closely at anyone. But when you can't speak and you can hardly move, what else is there to do but watch? "If everything goes according to plan, your bandages will be coming off tomorrow evening. You'll need to stay for a few more days after that to allow further treatment of your burns. It'd be very dangerous if they were to get infected, so we'll be cleaning them out here at the clinic for the next few days, and then you'll need to continue to clean them at home while they continue to heal over the next several months. For now, please just try to get some rest."

Turning to leave, she stares at her feet, like she can't even look at him. She knows what he looks like under these bandages. She's one of the only people who does, other than Batman and Robin (and Gilda, he supposes, must). He stands, legs shaking underneath him, and catches her wrist with one hand while the other moves to the nightstand to help him stay on his feet. His eye scans over her face for a long, quiet moment while she stares back at him with her two wide eyes. She looks scared but... sympathetic. He wonders how many patients stop her like this as she tries to leave their rooms. Finally, slowly, he tries to murmur through the bandages, "Will it ever get better?" His skin all burns as he tries to, pain filling up his whole body even as it should only be his face.

She stares back at him for a long moment, her eyes flicking over his face-- or rather, flicking over the bandages that cover where his face should be. Eventually, she sucks in a shaky breath and says, "The burns will heal given enough time. The pain may stop. But there'll be permanent scarring, and..." She gives him a look of pity that makes him want to wring her neck. "The acid completely destroyed your left eye. It was... It had to be removed."

His one good eye widens as he stares at her, and then he lets go of her wrist to bring his hand up to where his eye was, though it's covered in bandages. She hesitates a moment, and then leaves him alone in the room.

He collapses onto the floor and wants to scream, but when he opens his mouth he immediately has to snap it shut for the pain of stretching his burned skin and so he just sits on the floor and shakes with silent sobs.  _I'm ruined_ , he thinks. Both him and the angry part inside of him. They are in terrifying sync right now.  _I can't be District Attorney like this. I can't be anything!_

He deserves better. He knows he does. For once, he does not suppress his anger because God damn it,  _shouldn't he be angry?_ His life has been ruined, ripped out of his hands and thrown on the ground and stomped on. His face has been scarred, his soul has been tainted, and his wife--  _Oh God, where is his wife?_


End file.
